Haiti - Agriculture : Food outlook in the country September to January 202012/09/2019 09:03:38

Livelihoods continue to deteriorate in Haiti, mainly because of rising prices and the uneven geographical distribution of rainfall. The purchasing power of the poorest continues to decline...

Food security situation :
Livelihoods in Haiti continue to deteriorate, mainly because of rising prices and the uneven geographical distribution of rainfall. The purchasing power of the poorest continues to decline and some households still resort to negative coping strategies to obtain food (consumption of seed stocks that were to be kept for the summer crop year, purchase of food on credit, reduction of health expenses, etc...) while others have difficulties in incurring non-food expenses. Most areas of the country are therefore under stress (Phase 2 of the CPI Limited access to adequate food with high and recurrent risk of gradually falling into Phase 3, 4 or 5 due to the likelihood of adverse events and high food vulnerability) , others are in Crisis (IPC Phase 3 Acute and Critical Failure of Food Access with Severe Malnutrition and unusual and accelerated depletion of livelihood assets.) which, if the situation persists, will bring the population into Phase 4 or 5 and / or will likely result in chronic poverty.

Situation of the workforce :
Since June, agricultural activities in some areas have been dominated by land preparation and planting operations for the summer season, although slowed down by losses in the spring campaign. Labor is available, but its cost is relatively high compared to the capacity of farmers. In Gonâve, for example, agricultural labor is very rare, mainly geared towards the fishing sector, transport (taxi-motorcycle) and migration. Elsewhere, many households also have access to alternative sources of income, including urban migration or to the Dominican Republic, transfers from relatives living abroad, etc. However, a number of households have more limited access to these sources of income.

Outlook by January 2010 :
Between August and September 2019 : The poor performance of the spring campaign negatively impacted the summer farming season. The availability of local products is therefore expected to improve only partially, and food access is expected to remain reduced due to high food prices. The poorest households will continue to use negative coping strategies, leaving some areas of the country in Crisis (IPC Phase 3) or stress (IPC Phase 2). Nevertheless, a small number of zones will still be in the Minimal Phase (Phase 1 of the CPI).

Between October 2019 and January 2020 : The second period of the scenario (October-January), coincides, on the one hand, with the summer / autumn harvests and, on the other hand, with the launch of the winter campaign in plains and wet mountains. Food consumption is expected to remain stable or even improve in some areas, partly because of harvests but also because of the seasonal increase in farm incomes. The availability of certain local products would lead to a relative decline in food prices and the increase in flows of Haitian migrants to their relatives would facilitate a greater circulation of currencies slightly stabilizing the exchange rate gourde / US dollar. The use of negative strategies could therefore decrease, which would lead some areas previously in Phase 3 Crisis to a Phase 2 stress situation, but this would remain limited to certain areas.